


into each life some rain must fall

by trvelyans



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22660744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trvelyans/pseuds/trvelyans
Summary: James has a lot to say to Josie but no answers for her many, many questions.
Relationships: James & Female Lone Wanderer, James & Lone Wanderer
Kudos: 11





	into each life some rain must fall

Heavy clouds gather overhead, blanketing the already dark sky. Across the flat expanse of dried up soil and dead grass surrounding Smith Casey’s Garage, the building in which the entrance to Vaut 112 hides, the wind whips. Josie and James keep a quick pace across the Wasteland, intent to reach Rivet City before midday tomorrow, but occasionally, behind her, she can hear him stop to catch his breath.

“I’ve become too old for this, I’m afraid,” he says at one point, forcing a smile when she looks over her shoulder at him and waving a hand at her so she doesn’t worry. “Just a minute.”

She says nothing. Just stands in front of him, clutching her gun, biting hard on the inside of her cheek so she doesn’t start crying again.

She can’t help it. It’s been a long two months without him, and seeing him again was like a punch to the gut. It reminds her how good they had it in the Vault; how easy life was back then. Maybe it was lonely, she supposes, and a little boring, but it was _easy_. And it reminds her, too, that he left. He left without a word or a good-bye one random, meaningless morning and she had no choice to go after him. He didn’t want that either, though. Just like he didn’t want to stay in the Vault anymore.

Like he didn’t want to stay with her.

He places a hand on her shoulder and shakes her gently, drawing her out of her thoughts.

“Do you see something, honey?”

He’s called her that as long as she can remember. It always calmed her, the way he said it - warm and slow, like molasses, like she could fall into his arms no matter what and it would always be a soft place for her to land and rest. And now tears prick the corners of her eyes and the wind seems that much colder, and she swallows the lump growing in her throat as she shakes her head, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and trying not to shrug his hand away.

“Are you ready?” she asks.

The silence is tense and his expression is hurt. She can see it out of the corner of her eye because she can still barely stand to look at him. He drops his hand and nods, and she can see him clenching his fist around the grip of the gun she lent him. The gun she lent him.

A daughter should never have to protect her father from anything. That’s _his_ job. 

“Yes,” he replies on a whisper, “I’m ready if you are.”

She nods and turns on her heel and takes off in the direction of Rivet City once more.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t reacted the way he did. “What are you doing here?” he’d asked, like he had any reason to be surprised she came after him, like he had any reason to think she was just going to let him disappear from her life without knowing why. “It’s so good to see you,” he said, “but what are you _doing_ here?” 

“What - What are you doing here?” Her eyes began to water. “You could’ve been _killed_!”

“Well, I didn’t expect Doctor Braun to be alive and insane,” Dad answered evenly. “I thought I’d just find... notes, or holotapes. I needed information about Braun, and his work on the G.E.C.K.” A smile grew across his face. “And thanks to him... I know that Project Purity isn’t lost at all. Now that I’m back, I can return to my work...” He was nodding to himself, holding his Pipboy up to his face and typing something into it. “I need to tell Madison what I’ve learned.”

That’s it. That’s all. No ‘I’m sorry’. No ‘thank you’. No nothing. Just Project Purity. Just work. Like always.

He dropped his arm after finishing what he was typing and was about to say something more when he finally noticed Josie’s expression, and he took a step closer to her, placing a hand on the rim of the Tranquility Pod to look up at her with furrowed eyebrows. “Honey, what’s -”

“Don’t.” She shook her head, pushing herself out of the pod, climbing down out the other side and grabbing her gun from where she left it. Her legs were wobbly, and her eyes were still adjusting to the stale grey light admist the haze of tears, but she moved with more intent and direction than she ever had before. “Don’t call me that. Don’t you dare.”

He hurried around the pod to reach her. “Josie, sweetie -”

“No.” She reached up to furiously wipe a tear away. “You don’t get to call me that, Dad. You don’t get to act like I’m overreacting. I’m not. You left me alone in the Vault without so much as a good-bye, and -”

Her breath caught in her throat and James’ face crumpled. He reached out to her with outstretched arms. “I left you a -”

“A holotape does not count!” she said. “That’s nothing!”

“Honey, please, let me explain -”

“I don’t want to hear your _explanation_ ,” she interrupted, and it sounded more like a whimper than she hoped it would when her bottom lip began to tremble. “You left without so much as a good-bye, and _I_ had to pay the price!”

He took a step away from her, horrified, like she had slapped him. “What does that mean?” 

She stared at him for a long moment before swallowing hard, slinging her gun over her shoulder and bending down to grab her bag. “Nothing,” she answered, too defeated and drained to fight him. “Nothing. We should start walking to Rivet City. We’re losing daylight already.”

“Josephine -”

But she was already heading for the stairs and, a few seconds later, his footsteps joined hers, echoing through the empty halls of the Vault, loud like a war drum.

Now she can barely hear him walking behind her over the wind and distant thunder, and at one point he reaches out for her shoulder again, squeezing it to get her attention.

“We should stop, find shelter,” he says. “It looks like it’s going to rain soon.”

“We can make it another -”

He squeezes her shoulder again and wordlessly moves to stand beside her, pointing to an old, abandoned power station in the distance. There’s an empty truck in front of it, wide enough to fit them both easily. Hopefully, there will be sleeping bag or two inside leftover from the truck’s last residents. Josie only has one for herself, after all. She didn’t prepare for this.

She nods and starts off towards it, and Dad follows. 

The two of them work in silence to the sound of the radio, setting up a habitable enough living space for the night just as it starts raining. There isn’t a sleeping bag or mattress inside so Josie unzips her own and unfolds it in case Dad wants to sit down but he opts to lean against a metal box instead as he fiddles with his Pipboy. She hands him a can of cold Instamash and he takes it from her, quietly opening it and slurping up the first layer with two fingers.

“Did you find what you needed?”

He glances up at her, surprised to hear her speaking to him.

“I did,” he replies. “Braun’s work, the G.E.C.K., was designed to re-adapt environments for living after a nuclear war. It’s not entirely stable, but...” He quickly chews and swallows another mouthful of food. “I’m sure the components of that technology are just what we need. What we’ve been missing all this time.”

He gives her a deliberate stare, and she doesn’t return it. Instead she stares into her own can and decides, after a few minutes, that she can’t eat it. She closes the lid and places it beside her sleeping bag, and then doesn’t know what to do with herself.

But he’s still looking at her. He’s finished eating and wipes his hand on the leg of his jumpsuit, and he moves towards her with a purposeful look on his face. “Josephine,” he says in a quiet voice, “may I try and explain myself?”

She says nothing. She balls up her fists in her lap and stares at the soles of her boots while her eyes well up with tears once more. 

And then, before he can begin, she breathes, “Why did you just leave me like that?” 

Everyone in the Vault always talked about how close they were. And they were. He taught her everything he knew about medicine, and tech, and she was helping him out in the clinic by the time she was twelve, offering advice on cases he couldn’t quite solve that always turned out to be right. She looked like her mom in most ways, according to him - her hair, her smile, her laugh - but Amata said once that Josie had her dad’s eyes. Dark brown, thoughtful.

And yet he did something so thoughtless...

“It’s where you belonged,” he answers. “You were an adult, capable of fending for yourself, and you had a good life ahead of you. You’re much smarter than I was at your age, you know. Clearly it’s served you well.”

It’s meant to be a joke, but she doesn’t laugh.

“What’s out here is my task,” he continues, “my responsibility. I... I never wanted you to have any part in this insanity.”

“Your responsibility?” Josie repeats. “What does that mean, Dad?”

“Project Purity was underway long before you were born. There were many of us, including your mother, who devoted our lives to it. The idea of free, clean water for everyone drove us to succeed. So many sacrifices were made for that idea.” He pauses for a moment. “My responsibility is to see it through to the end, to make sure those sacrifices mean something.”

“Isn’t taking care of me your responsibility?”

Dad opens his mouth to protest, but Josie sighs. “Nevermind,” she says. He’ll answer her, of course, but she doesn’t want to hear more defenses or excuses.

“No, I... Josie, for almost twenty years now, I've done everything I can to see that you have a good life. The Vault wasn't perfect, to be sure, but it was the safest place in the Wasteland. That's why I took you there in the first place. I didn't see it as abandoning you. I saw it as moving on, knowing you were safe.”

“Safe?” She tries to laugh but it’s strangled by the spit in the back of her throat. “I wasn’t safe. The day you left, the Overseer killed Jonas and turned his guards against me!”

His eyes grow wide. “What?” 

She rolls the sleeve of her jumpsuit up and thrusts her arm towards him where a slowly healing bullet wound marks the middle of her bicep. “They _shot_ at me,” she continues, tears stinging her eyes once more, “and by the time I was almost out, almost free, I had already killed a guard, and then I saw a man interrogating Amata, and I...” The images flash through her mind like lightning, shaking her to her core. “I opened th-the door to save her because she promised against her dad’s wishes to help me escape, and I shot him, and killed him, too. I killed the Overseer, Dad.”

“Josie...” He swallows thickly. “You have to know I never meant for that to happen -”

“It _did_.” 

Her words hit him like a ton of bricks and he leans back, breathing deep. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

She sniffs, reaching up to wipe her nose. “You should be,” she replies, quiet enough that he might not hear it. He does, though. She knows he does from the way she can see him stiffen, and neither of them say anything more.

She turns away from him and starts fiddling with the dials of her Pipboy, turning the volume higher to drown out the sound of her dad muttering to himself behind her. And then, as the song winds down, Three Dog’s voice comes through the speakers.

 _“Grab your hankies, children, cause I've got a heart-warming tale to tell.”_ Josie clutches her Pipboy closer to her chest, drawing one of her legs up and hugging it against herself with her other arm. _“It's about a little girl's search for her… for her daddy. Waaaahh!”_

She considers turning the radio off, but she can hear Dad rustling around behind her. He’s probably listening.

Good. She turns the dial a little higher.

_“You see, the kid from Vault 101 has been looking for her dad, a very nice man named James, who left his daughter behind in the Vault when he took off. What kind of dad leaves his kid in an underground bunker? Children, I just don't know. It ain't for Three Dog to judge, and you shouldn't either.”_

She closes her eyes and leans her forehead against her knee, listening intently.

_“I heard she was goin’ out to find him somewhere. If she does... here's hoping they can hold onto each other this time around. And now, it's the "First Lady of Song" herself, Miss Ella Fitzgerald, telling us...”_

The song begins, and Dad clears his throat to break the awkward silence. “That man has, ah, quite a way with words, doesn’t he?”

She doesn’t respond. She should. She feels bad.

“Honey,” he says, standing up to approach her and sit behind her on the sleeping bag, “I didn’t know any of that would happen. Of course I didn’t. I wanted a different life for you. I had hoped the Overseer would just seal the Vault, making it impossible for you to leave. It might mean you spent the rest of your life hating me, but... your well-being was worth that chance.”

He reaches up and places a hand on her arm. “But you’re not safe out here,” he says. “As smart as you are - and you are very smart - you’re not safe out here. No one is. And... I suppose you weren’t safe in the Vault, either, because of what I did...”

And then he sighs, like this is his last ditch effort before finally giving up. “And I will never be able to make it up to you. I know that. And I’m sorry, Josephine. I truly am.”

She looks over her shoulder at them. “You’ve lied to me about so many things,” she says. “How am I supposed to believe you?”

But he takes it in stride. All of a sudden, he seems more determined now that she’s finally starting to answer him. “Yes, I lied about where you were born,” he says matter-of-factly. “About where I was born. I admit that. At the time, I felt the truth would only encourage you to try and leave the Vault, to go looking for your past.”

“All these things you did to try and get me to stay in the Vault,” she murmurs. “All these things, and look what happened.”

“I’m not proud of some of the things I did,” he says. “I’m not. But Project Purity... it’s important. If we can make it a reality, we can create a new life for ourselves out here. While this isn't what I had in mind, it's good to have you with me.”

They shouldn’t have to create a new life for themselves, Josie wants to say. She’s being selfish, but she wishes they had stayed in the Vault forever. If not for their safety, then at least for the knowledge, the confirmation, that the one person who cared about her _did_. She was nothing to everyone else. The only person she _knew_ she was _something_ to... _left._

It’s been the toughest pill to swallow about this, and for two months, she’s been choking on it.

“Is this about mom?” she asks. “Are you trying so hard because of what happened to her?” 

“Oh, honey. If only you could have known how much it meant to her. She believed in the work we were doing, and was so determined to see it through. She gave up so much for the project. We all did, and I don't want that to have been for nothing.”

Josie gave up so much for this project. She gave up her life, for it and her dad. And she didn’t even have a choice, in the end. He did.

And he chose the project. And she chose the project. And neither of them chose her.

But he’s choosing her now, isn’t he? Or trying to, anyway?

“When we finish this,” he continues, “we can sit down and talk. Really talk.” He’s using his serious voice, but she’s still scared that he might be lying. “I’d like to work through this with you, Josie.”

“I don’t know if you can.”

“I know,” he replies, but he doesn’t know. “I know that you feel that way right now. But from here on out... no lies. No secrets. You and I can work side by side, together, on Project Purity. It’ll feel just like old times.”

She’s never felt as happy as she used to when she’d work alongside her dad in the lab. She lifts her head and looks at him over her shoulder. “Do you promise?”

He smiles. “I promise, honey,” he replies, and it sounds like he means it.

She stares at him for a moment before unfolding herself and throwing her arms around him. He hugs her back just as tightly, if not tighter, and it’s so familiar. Out here, in the Wasteland, where everything is new and hard and scary, this is familiar. 

“I love you,” she breathes sadly into his neck, burrowing her face against him.

“I love you too,” he says.

They sit like that for a while, but eventually she pulls away, smiling sheepishly at him as she wipes her nose on the back of her hand. “So,” she murmurs, reaching up to unclasp her shoulder guard from her Vault Suit, “what exactly is ‘Project Purity’?”

Dad folds his arms across his chest and looks up at the roof, reminiscing. “It started as an idea, really. Remember the Bible passage your mother loved so much? ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely’ _._ Free, clean water for everyone. What a difference it could make in the lives of everyone here in the Wastes...”

The sound of rainfall grows heavier and heavier against the walls of the truck as Josie prepares for bed. Once she’s finished removing her armor and is left in nothing more than her Vault suit, she lies down with her head resting on her dad’s thigh and listens to the sound of him talking. And talking. And after a while, whispering. He runs his fingers idly through her hair while he whispers to her. She can’t quite pick out what he’s saying after a while - she’s too tired to listen too closely - but it lulls her into a sense of security, anyway, and she rarely feels that out here, so she grabs onto it and holds with all of her might.

She’s almost asleep when she hears him say, “For what it’s worth, honey... I’m very proud of you.”

 _That_ Josie believes. _That_ , if nothing else. She doesn’t even think twice about it.

**Author's Note:**

> a lot of this fic is in-game dialogue, but i thought i'd put a little spin on it since we don't have the opportunity in-game to tell him what happened in the vault after he left! plus a little character study for josie, as well. if you like her - and want to see her in a less tearful state - then you can find more info about her on my tumblr @ trvelyans ! (also the power station is VAPL-84 power station and it is in fact a spawn point for yao guais but uh! just pretend josie stealth killed it upon approach or something :))
> 
> thank you very much for reading ! <3


End file.
